Anyone else get the feeling they are still figuring out the story for 6.X and 7.0 ?

[Midareyukki]

your expectations are unrealistic at best.

he will never state specifically what is coming up, thats not how things are done.. ever. why? because then other companies can rush to release the same kind of thing first. to expect full disclosure is to live in a fantasy world. most negative receptions are a result of a player base expecting something that was never deliverable in the first place.

I'll decide after things are released whether they are good or not. getting all hyoed up or depressed over something in the future is a certain path to mental health issues. I prefer to manage expectations and either be pleasantly surprised, or decide to take a break and enjoy other options. dont tie your happiness to a game... it wont end well.

I dont see them AT ALL trying to "subvert expectations". all I see is that their hands are tied in releasing information. for good reasons. I think you read far too much into it and are making assumptions

I just boiled it down to him being a Japanese game developer from a company notorious for being even more evasive and secretive about their projects than the rest.

That... or remember the time during Stormblood where people would go absolutely insane every time a new patch dropped because of job changes, and the team got so fed up that they stopped sharing them until the patch notes came out?

He's never going to be objective and share stuff. Yes, it's a fantasy world, but some stuff would actually be for the better if he were a little bit more transparent. But alas: this is SE and this is Yoshida. Best we'll get is them browsing through twitter and have a vague notion of what people are saying they want in the game and roll with it.

As a former WoW player, who is seeing deep WoW story points of their next expansion spoiled in the peripheral vision of social media just by being an MMO gamer, I find the idea of not knowing what's happening next in FFXIV to be an extreme novelty, and a breath of fresh air!

I guess it gives you a sense of wonder and surprise? But what if you end up highly disliking what you have? or by comparison, what if WoW were doing a good job with its story (one can dream)? Would you be saying the same?

[Striker44]

It wasn't for me and it wasn't for many people. It was a shocking moment, but I was not as connected to Haurchefant as the game wanted to pretend I was. I had forgotten about him by the time we visited the grave at the end of Heavensward and I didn't care for seeing him in the 3.3 cutscene where we throw the eyes away. I would have rather seen Ysale next to me. I think most people's connection to Haurchefant now is more about the fanfiction and fan art that has been created around him.

See, here's the thing. When you have a game played by hundreds of thousands of people, you'll be able to find "many" people that agree or disagree with any thought simply because there are so many people. It doesn't make whatever that opinion is the norm or anywhere close to the most common opinion. I'm actually of the same thought as you in that I wasn't as connected to Haurchefant, but I also realize that's actually a minority opinion. Go practically anywhere and you'll see tons of people talking about how significant a moment it was for them (many, many more than you'll see share our opinion).

If the only deep connection to Hydaelyn that we really formed was in EW, then it doesn't count as bold because it was effectively a character created in EW, to die in EW. That's very different to what I think is implied by "bold", which is killing Alphinaud, Y'shtola and the other scions who have been with you for many expansions talking to you for the last 10 years.

Thankfully, it's not the only "deep" connection we've had to Hydaelyn. That's existed since ARR. You know, the entire life of the game since 2.0.

[aveyond-dreams]

I just want that sense of wonder back when we adventured through Ishgard, the shock and awe of the events that took place in our journey there. The revelations, the true and permanent sacrifices. They have lived in my memory for far longer than the events of Endwalker, whose message of "forge ahead" wasn't representative of the struggles of the protagonist faction. The fact that this was billed as a story of loss, fire, and faith, when you have main characters in the party who literally get their equipment upgrades from their parents and suffer no lasting harm in the middle of an apocalypse was too much.

Stuff like that is why you see people who are strongly in favor of getting fresh new characters and leaving behind the Scions. 10 years they've been with us and the result is we have a party that is both visually and ideologically too similar. I don't know what they have planned for this Void arc but part of me hopes they revisit the idea of "merging" or whatever the details of the changes to the ARR zones based on the events of Shadowbringers was but with the Void. The introduction of a large number of Voidsent to the world would at least make it more interesting, and perhaps even instill a sense of danger like we had as we journeyed through the First. I only hope that the victories of the protagonists along with their upgrades aren't handed to them so easily then and that the character arcs of those who remain in the party proceed in a more meaningful way.

[Midareyukki]

snip

I agree.

Up until Stormblood, the story actually felt like it had weight and would take itself seriously. Sure, cumbersome though it may be for there to be multiple unresolved topics at once that would split our attention, it felt like the world was alive and that characters had a bit more on their minds than one singular mission. From Stormblood onward though? A lot of the stuff got resolved in the sidelines, and often rather crudely at that. From then on, the plot was a lot more straightforward and focused. Sure, people complain that Stormblood was split between Ala Mhigo and the Far East to the plot's own detriment, but really? Almost none of the characters we took along actually had any motivation to stick by those areas. They were just places for us to go and help resolve, nothing more. Contrast to ARR setting up the world and the characters anew, and Heavensward being a quest about reviving Alphinaud's confidence and finding our lost friends. With all that went around us having impacted Alphinaud. Shadowbringers brought us all together, but the plot past 5.0 was almost inconsequential to character growth other than G'raha being less self-sacrificial. And Endwalker just felt like we had a party to clear content with us along the way, making very few attempts at connecting the characters to the plot itself other than "X person uses Y cliché to progress story".

Most already resolved their plots and didn't get anything new. The only ones I can see having something fresh is Y'shtola going back to the First to fulfill her promise to an NPC she never once mentions by name in all of Endwalker thus far... and G'raha fulfilling his dream to accompany us on a quest. Him being our poodle really isn't that much, give him his own plot to flesh out and question stuff about himself. Allow him to mature, more than just asserting what we already know: that he used to be a competent leader and grew off-screen in the past. But everyone else either already finished their own growths in a satisfying way (Thancred) or barely had any to begin with (Urianger).

And after so long with this group simply getting by with Power of Friendship and plot armour\plot excuses, such as Y'shtola's virtual immortality due to being the mascot of the game, I simply can't relate to what are meant to be our friends in our journey. They're fine, but if I see them again in my travels, it will be too soon. We need fresh blood, simple as that. That, and for the ones the devs definitely want to keep to have a more meaningful and less "obvious mary sue plot armour" story going forward.

And to answer the thread's title... no, I don't think they have figured that aspect out yet. So far it's been more of the same. Quite a lot of people may enjoy it, plenty have thus far. While they have ideas for stories, it'd be nice if said story had characters that felt compelling after so long with such obvious NPC's.

[Jeeqbit]

The need for new characters is obvious, I just think it's obvious enough that SE can see it too. I have been expecting we will meet someone else in the expansion.

A new adventure implies meeting new people, otherwise it's not much of a "new" adventure.

Thankfully, it's not the only "deep" connection we've had to Hydaelyn. That's existed since ARR. You know, the entire life of the game since 2.0.

I'm defining deep connection as the amount of text interaction we had with them and all the people I listed had less text interaction with us than those who lived at the time of their deaths. Even though we have a lot of text interaction with Minfilia in ARR, 3 expansions worth of other character interactions probably overshadows it.